Last week, the Giant Pool of Money, won a Peabody award. This was a breakthrough program on many fronts. First of all it was a collaboration between two rivals - This American Life and NPR. Secondly it was web based. Thirdly it was long form. Lastly it took the POV of mystery - not only for journalists but for ALL concerned - including the regulators and the Treasury.
The show shed light for the first time on the complex crisis that confronts us. It gave birth to an entirely new kind of news show, Planet Money, that is extending all the lessons learned by the initiating show.
Here is a video of one of the co hosts - Adam Davidson (The other was Alex Blumberg of This American Life) Where Adam does his best to explain how making this show is changing his perspective on how journalists cover complex stories.
I think that in these few minutes, Adam explains the real revolution that has to take place in news.
He tells of his problem with space and time in conventional journalism. How can you talk about say a problem in mortgage backed securities in just 3 minutes when most know nothing abut them. But this is what people have to do in the time constraints of a audio or Video news program or in the space constraints available in a newspaper. Conventional news simply does not offer the time or the space to cope with complex things.
Linear news cannot inform us about complexity and complexity is our world now.
He talks about the problem of the "Authoritative Voice" the voice of God that is used. As a correspondent in Iraq, he and his wife could always tell the newbies - they were the ones who knew what was going on! It is now quite clear that even Henry Paulson did not know what was going on. So why should any journalist pretend that they did? Adam is saying that the right place for a journalist is to be a seeker on behalf of the public.
Top down voices of authority cannot illuminate complexity either. Only an invitation for conversation can unpack complexity's meaning.
Update - I have added this part on Complexity a day later:
This deceptively simple diagram, made by Dave Snowden, I think explains for the the core idea.
The ever increasing number of links and connections in the world has taken us to a "Phase Shift". We have broken out of a Simple and Complicated World into a Chaotic and Complex world.
Chaotic and Complex events CANNOT be understood by using a linear thought process. Only an emergent process has any chance of establishing understanding. This is why our current Linear News process actually makes us MORE confused.
Only an interactive multi-player conversation can offer "Emergence". So only an online process for news has any chance.
In the first few weeks of Planet Money, I talked with Adam and Laura about their plans and how they might be able to use a web based show. Here in summary is what he told me. In essence they were going to prepare a a big all you can eat buffet. It would suit every taste and would be open 24/7. (BPP was a diner)
- Daily the team would offer up nuggets, small dishes, of current and topical news that they found or that an ever expanding circle of "fans" as per BPP, would send in
- 3 - 4 times a week they would offer up a podcast, a longer form piece - a small audio magazine - this could be and is sliced and diced and added into the main magazines such as All Things Considered, News Broadcasts, Local shows, Morning Edition - what they learned with BPP is that it is better to add great new content into the blockbuster items rather than try and compete with your self. This way PM builds a wide audience by using the network effect. Adam also is a regular guest on the New Hour - thus PBS and NPR are getting closer as well
- Every 6 weeks or so - a long form show such as Giant Money in collaboration with TAL.
- The POV was always going to be - EXPLAIN! The presenters of the show would be representing us. They would start from a position of NOT KNOWING and not understanding the jargon. The irony is that even the so called experts have told Adam that they too have learned from the show. The problem being that they often know a lot about a little but also cannot see the larger whole. So the "VOICE" that we hear is a questioning, uncertain voice. When I say "Voice" I mean literally the timbre of what you hear. The deep profundo voice of God is not allowed on the show. I think key to this voice are Laura and Caitlin who sound like your favorite sisters and not your mother or some Amazonian know it all with power hair. The guys are quizzical and sound a bit like your bright university guy friend who is helping you understand calculus or statistics.
Of course everything is online so it is all available at any time. Hence the "banquet" metaphor.
I find all the hand wringing of conventional journalism a bit lame. 3 minute sound bites, 8 inches of text and the VOICE from the burning bush is actually making the world harder to comprehend.
Don't all the problems that confront us fit this new kind of treatment? For do you really know what do do in Iraq and Afghanistan? Do you really have the answers to health or to energy? Do you know anyone that really has the answer to our education system?
Is not part of our problem that conventi0nal journalism makes it all but impossible to get to the root of these issues?
I think that the limits of "space" and "time" on conventional media do make it worse. These limits reduce all to bits and bites and give a stage and power to rabble rowsers - look at the cheerleaders in the financial sector!
Planet Money will look like the Model T Ford in 30 years time. But it will I think be seen as the Model T, as the expression of an entirely new and appropriate way of approaching the world that we now inhabit. A world that is made so complex by its vast array of interconnections.
As with all things on the web - the real shift is in relationship and hence POV. The time and space contraints of traditional media drive the top down expert/god POV. This fitted a less interconnected and hence less complex world. But with a hyper linked world, we live in much more complex times. Only a hyper linked way of gathering and offering the news will fit.
That is the revolution.
Hats off to Adam and Alex - to Ira Glass and to Ellen Weiss
